Selections; ifloial anD Religious; 

jfrom tfje <E® ' s of 

fotjn &usfcuu 

WLith Motza anb Comments by 

jfreoertcfe W. <^storn 




Class 111 \5> 

Book .. O 7 
Copyright If 



COPYRIGHT DEPOSIT. 



SELECTIONS 

MORAL AND RELIGIOUS 
From the Works of 

JOHN RUSKIN 

With Notes and Comments 
by 

FREDERICK W. OSBORN 

Professor Emeritus Adelphi College, Brooklyn 




ARTierveRiTAn! 



BOSTON: RICHARD G. BADGER 

TORONTO: THE COPP CLARK CO., LIMITED 



Copyright, 1917, by Frederick W. Osborn 



All Rights Reserved 



n i%i% 



pi 



MADE IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA 

The Gorham Press, Boston, U. S. A. 

V 

MAR 26 1317 



P Lb 6 rvjk 
■ 80149 '' 



"VvJ«D 



I gladly dedicate this book to my former 
pupils in Adelphia Academy and College 



CONTENTS 

Page 

Introduction — Ruskin as an Ethical Teacher. 7 

The Value of Occupation 16 

Liberty and its Perils 19 

The Connection Between Good Taste and 

Morality 21 

The Unselfish Use of Superior Talents 25 

The True Source of Strength in Government. 28 

The Unselfish Imagination 31 

On Betting 33 

The Spending of Money 35 

Work Dignified by its Motive 37 

Concerning the Settlement of Political Disputes 

Among Nations 40 

Disregard of Law in the Pursuit of Wealth. . 42 

The Value of Contentment 45 

Honesty in Trivial Affairs 48 

The Process of the Formation of Habits 50 

On Lying 53 

The Nude in Art 55 

Compensation for Work 57 

The Mystery of Life 61 



SELECTIONS, MORAL AND RELIGIOUS 
FROM THE WORKS OF JOHN RUSKIN 



INTRODUCTION 
RUSKIN AS AN ETHICAL TEACHER 

HP HE latter half of the last century is noteworthy 
for the presence of two men in England who 
attracted attention by the forcefulness of their ethical 
message to their countrymen and to the world. As 
we all know they were Thomas Carlyle and John 
Ruskin. Like the utterances of all prophets their 
messages provoked vigorous criticism, but were too 
truthful to be treated with indifference or ignored. 
Neither of these writers undertook to publish a sys- 
tem of ethics but called attention to the existence of 
social and economic evils which, in popular estima- 
tion, had come to be regarded as inherent in the or- 
ganization of English life. It was this practical 
character of their teaching, especially that of Rus- 
kin, that has given to their work such a vital signifi- 
cance, — a significance that is manifesting itself in 
the changes occurring to-day in the social and eco- 
nomic life of England. 

The early life of Ruskin did not seem favorable to 
the career of an ethical teacher. He was a child 
7 



8 SELECTIONS FROM RUSKIN 

of fortune, carefully nurtured by fond parents, sur- 
rounded in a refined home by all that makes life 
attractive. He knew nothing of the struggle with 
poverty, nor did he have any occasion to mark out 
for himself a definite career. His earliest interests 
were a love of nature and a love of books, and no 
pains were spared to gratify these tastes. While still 
a boy, he shared with the family the pleasures of 
foreign travel and made copious records of what he 
saw and heard. His university career at Oxford was 
interrupted by ill health, and was distinguished by 
his essays in poetry in which he won at least one 
prize and was a competitor for honors with Ten- 
nyson In all this period of preparation there is 
surely but little to suggest the career of a prophet. 
In the absence of any positive proof, it may be dif- 
ficult to assert to what extent his early familiarity 
with the English Bible may have helped to develop 
his ethical ideals. It is certainly not unreasonable to 
suppose that the truths embodied in the literature of 
both the Old Testament and the New may have 
aided in the development of that keen sense of jus- 
tice which lent force and vigor to all his ethical 
teaching. 



SELECTIONS FROM RUSKIN 9 

But Ruskin possessed one trait of character that 
contained in itself the promise of his career as an 
artist and teacher, — his sincerity. He would not 
accept the standards of others as his own. He must 
examine the fundamental principles of art as the 
only sure and safe basis for a critical judgment. No 
pains were too great, no labor too assiduous in order 
that he might master the details of a subject. Noth- 
ing would satisfy him but a first-hand acquaintance 
with some region or object in nature. His fa- 
miliarity with mountains was gained by long resi- 
dence among them and a careful study of their geo- 
logical history. In preparation for his great work 
on the ''Stones of Venice," after obtaining all infor- 
mation possible from books, he spent a whole winter 
in Venice, thoroughly examining St. Marks, the 
Ducal Palace and several ruins, "drawing and meas- 
uring and comparing their details." 

His thorough honesty and sincerity made him in- 
different to flattery on the one hand, and to hostile 
criticism on the other. His defence of Turner in the 
first volume of "Modern Painters" called down upon 
him a storm of reproach from artists for his lack of 
reverence for the old masters. In a casual meeting 



io SELECTIONS FROM RUSKIN 

with someone who said he greatly enjoyed his works 
Mr. Ruskin replied, "I do not care whether you 
enjoyed them, but did they do you any good?" 

Nor was our author content to urge upon others 
the value of honesty, justice, and an unselfish regard 
for their welfare in their dealings with their fel- 
low men. His deeds powerfully reenforced his 
words. No better evidence could be given of his 
sincere desire to bring the blessings of culture and 
refinement into the homes of the poor than his gen- 
erous service in their behalf. Although brought up 
in a home of elegance and refinement, and accus- 
tomed from a child to the gratification of his tastes, 
and the heir of large wealth, he gave at first a little, 
then a half, then all of his income, except £300, 
for the benefit of others less fortunate than himself. 
If he needed botanical and art works for his studies, 
he crippled himself rather than refuse his last spare 
twenty guineas to the widow of a dead artist. 

When the Workingmen's College was established 
in London he took charge of the drawing classes 
single-handed, and for several months in the year 
spent two evenings a week in personal instruction. 
His biographer remarks that only one that has en- 



SELECTIONS FROM RUSKIN n 

gaged in this form of philanthropic labor can "quite 
understand what it involves, and how difficult it is 
for an artist or literary man, after his sedentary day's 
work, to drag his tired brain and over-worked nerves 
to a crowded room in some unsavory neighborhood, 
and to endure the noise, the glare, the closeness, and, 
worst of all perhaps, the indocility of a class of learn- 
ers for whom the discipline of the ordinary school or 
college does not exist." 

Ruskin was gifted, like a true poet, with a keen in- 
sight into the fundamental nature of man. This na- 
ture being essentially esthetic must find a normal ex- 
pression in the production of things beautiful. High 
art was not, therefore, to be achieved by a strict ad- 
herence to rules, or by deftness in handling a brush, 
but must be an expression of the total man. A great 
picture could be produced only by a great soul. And 
thus Ruskin sought to dignify all art by ennobling 
the motives of the artist. The true mission of the 
artist is to add to the value and significance of life 
both in the individual and in the nation. This con- 
ception of the ideal excellence of art led him to make 
incessant warfare upon showy architecture, and upon 
the unsightly objects that disfigured the streets of 



12 SELECTIONS FROM RUSKIN 

large cities. These were the marks of a decadent 
rather than a virile national life. 

Ruskin saw with great clearness the psychologic 
truth that there is a striking parallel between the 
esthetic and the moral nature. Man is not made 
moral by the performance of duties prescribed by 
custom or enforced by law. This may make him a 
respectable citizen and a comfortable neighbor. But 
unless these practices are the outcome of a genuine 
love of honesty and justice and a sincere regard for 
the rights of others they are but as sounding brass 
and a tinkling cymbal. In one of his addresses, he 
observes, "The entire object of true education is to 
make people not merely do the right things but to 
enjoy the right things, — not merely pure, but to love 
purity, not merely just, but to hunger and thirst 
after justice. ,, 

This conception of morality as an influence per- 
vading the total life and as the overflow of a master- 
ful desire to be upright and just in all relations and 
toward all classes will help to explain much of the 
ethical teaching of Ruskin and his vigorous denunci- 
ation of some of the standards of morality preva- 
lent in the social and economic life of his times. And 



SELECTIONS FROM RUSKIN 13 

yet, with all his searching exposure of existing evils, 
he was a thorough believer in the excellence of hu- 
man nature. He would have us believe that human 
life was meant to be full of beauty and joy, and 
therefore that all should unite in social betterment 
for the accomplishment of this result. 

No small part of the charm of Ruskin's ethical 
teaching is due to his literary excellence. He has a 
style of his own in which the truth he would impress 
is conveyed in language at once lucid and exact and 
so full of rhythmic beauty that we willingly surren- 
der to its spell. One of his critics has said, "Amid 
all this pomp of language, all this radiance of imagi- 
nation, . . . there is not one word that does 
not perform its duty and is not the one word per- 
fectly fitted to produce the effect and express the 
thought which the writer would convey to us." 1 

Much of the most valuable part of the ethical 
teaching of Ruskin was incidental to his main work, 
or at least seems to have been suggested while pur- 
suing studies in other directions. During his study 
of Alpine scenery, while residing in Switzerland, he 



a Dawson : Makers of English Prose, p. 280. 



14 SELECTIONS FROM RUSKIN 

is impressed with the sadness of the life of the people 
and devotes a chapter in one of the volumes of 'Mod- 
ern Painters' to a discussion of the reasons for it. In 
describing the slow process in which a mountain peak 
is formed he turns aside to use it as an illustration of 
the formation of habits. It is obvious therefore that 
the casual reader is likely to miss much that is sig- 
nificant in the work of Ruskin, and that in order to 
come to a full appreciation of his personality such 
passages must be detached and arranged with others 
of similar significance. Together they furnish strong 
testimony to the fact that there was a dominant 
purpose pervading all his work, to elevate the ideals 
of life and to make it more fruitful of that which is 
noble and good, to eliminate existing antagonisms 
among the classes, and to unite men and women of 
all ranks in efforts to promote their mutual welfart. 
This purpose he has voiced in one of his own signifi- 
cant statements. "We need examples of people, who 
leaving Heaven to decide whether they are to rise 
in the world, decide for themselves whether they 
will be happy in it, and have resolved to seek not 
greater wealth, but simpler pleasures; not higher 



SELECTIONS FROM RUSKIN 15 

fortune but deeper felicity; making the first of pos- 
sessions self-possession; and honoring themselves in 
the harmless pride and calm pursuits of peace." 



THE VALUE OF OCCUPATION 

' I 4 HE character of men depends more on their oc- 
cupations than on any teaching we can give them, 
or principles with which we can imbue them. The 
employment forms the habits of body and mind, and 
these are the constitution of the man; — the greater 
part of his moral or persistent nature, whatsoever ef- 
fort, under special excitement he may make to change 
or overcome them. Employment is the half and the 
primal half of education, — it is the warp of it; and 
the fineness and endurance of all subsequently woven 
patterns depends wholly upon its straightness and 
strength. And whatsoever difficulty there may be in 
tracing through past history the remote connections 
of event and cause, one chain of sequence is always 
clear ; the formation, namely, of the character of na- 
tions by their employments and the determination of 
their final fate by their character. The movement 
and the first direction of decisive revolutions often 
depend on accident; but their persistent cause and 
16 



SELECTIONS FROM RUSKIN 17 

their consequences depend wholly on the nature of 
the people. . . . 

Whether as a body they employ their new powers 
for good or evil will depend, not on their facilities for 
knowledge, not even on the general intelligence they 
may possess; but on the number of persons among 
them whom wholesome employments have rendered 
familiar with the duties and modest in their estimate 
of the promises of life. 

— Queen of the Air, Sect. 126. 



OCCUPATION 

p RESIDENT HYDE has said, "No man can 
grow in character unless he is doing freely and 
gladly something which he likes to do — something 
into which he can put the whole energy of his will, 
the whole enthusiasm of his heart." 

The relation of occupation to character is a sub- 
ject that has received little attention as yet among 
educators, simply because occupation is usually de- 
termined by environment, or by financial needs and 
aspirations. In a manufacturing community the boy 
or girl will drift into a factory where money can be 



1 8 SELECTIONS FROM RUSKIN 

earned with the least delay and with a small amount 
of knowledge or skill. In a commercial community 
boys and girls will drift into business for a similar 
reason. 

Another difficulty is suggested by the fact that 
young people must often decide upon some occupa- 
tion before they have developed a preference for any. 
It is probable that the present system of education is 
partly responsible for this imperfect adjustment. The 
proposal to introduce into our public schools a larger 
variety of handwork and to classify children upon a 
better psychological basis will provide, at least, a par- 
tial remedy for this defect. Ruskin himself is a 
good illustration of the value of occupation in the 
development of character. From early youth his 
artistic nature was stimulated by a happy environ- 
ment and by well selected studies, to the development 
of an ideal life. But few persons can enjoy such 
opportunities as Ruskin enjoyed. 



II 

LIBERTY, AND ITS PERILS 

9 I *HE first point we have all to determine is not 
how free we are, but what kind of creatures we 
are. It is of small importance to any of us whether 
we get liberty; but of the greatest that we deserve 
it. Whether we can win, fate must determine ; but 
that we may be worthy of it, we may ourselves de- 
termine ; and the most sorrowful fate of all that we 
can suffer, is to have it without deserving it. . . . 
There is no act or option of act possible, but the 
wrong deed or option has poison in it which will stay 
in your veins thereafter for ever. Never more to all 
eternity can you be as you might have been had you 
not done that — chosen that. You have 'formed your 
character' forsooth ! No ; if you have chosen ill, you 
have De-formed it, and that forever. In some choices 
it had been better for you that a red-hot iron bar 
had struck you aside, scarred and helpless, than that 
you had so chosen. 'You will know better next 
time !' No. Next time will never come. Next time 
19 



ao SELECTIONS FROM RUSKIN 

the choice will be in quite another aspect — between 
quite different things, — you, weaker than you were 
by the evils into which you have fallen; it, more 
doubtful than it was by the increased dimness of 
your sight. No one ever gets wiser by doing wrong, 
nor stronger. You will get wiser and stronger only 
by doing right, whether forced or not; the prime, 
the one need is to do that, under whatever compul- 
sion, until you can do it without compulsion. And 
then you are a Man. 

This passage deals in a masterly manner with that 
subtle fascination which the knowledge of evil seems 
to possess for most young people. To get a first 
hand acquaintance with evil, to visit places where 
vice unmasks itself, to know in one's own experience 
the results of some vicious indulgence, with no inten- 
tion of ever repeating it, this seems to many not only 
to be quite harmless but to be the mark of a liberal 
and independent spirit. Such knowledge has often 
been justified as a part of one's necessary knowledge 
of the world. 

There is undoubtedly much in our current litera- 
ture that tends to foster this idea and to suggest the 



SELECTIONS FROM RUSKIN 21 

superior wisdom of those who possess such a knowl- 
edge. 

The unwisdom of such a course lies in the fact 
that all familiarity with vice tends to weaken resist- 
ance to it. It was a profound remark of Charles 
Lamb that the next worse thing to attempting 
to make a child an infidel was letting him 
know that there is any such thing as an infidel. And 
all educators know how carefully Plato sought to 
guard the children of his Republic against any ac- 
quaintance with the degrading mythological stories 
of the Iliad. 



THE CONNECTION BETWEEN GOOD 
TASTE AND MORALITY 

TV/f R. RUSKIN introduces the subject by the 
statement that "All good architecture is the 
expression of national life and character." 

This suggests to him the more comprehensive re- 
mark that good taste is essentially a moral quality. 
He proceeds to fortify this position in the following 
fashion : 

Taste is not only a part and an index of morality, 



22 SELECTIONS FROM RUSKIN 

it is the only morality. 2 The first, last, and closest 
trial question to any living creature is, 'What do you 
like?' Tell me what you like and I'll tell you what 
you are. Go out into the street and ask the first 
man or woman you meet what their 'taste' is, and if 
they answer candidly, you know them body and soul. 

'You, my friend in the rags, with the unsteady 
gait, what do you like?' 'A pipe and a quartern of 
gin.' I know you, 'You, good woman with the quick 
step and tidy bonnet, what do you like?' A swept 
hearth, and a clean tea-table and my husband oppo- 
site me and a baby at my breast.' Good, I know 
you also, 'You, little girl with the golden hair and 
the soft eyes, what do you like?' 'My canary, and a 
run among the wood hyacinths.' 'You little boy with 
the dirty hands and the low forehead, what do you 
like?' 'A shy at the sparrows and a game at pitch 
farthing.' Good; we know them all now. What 
more need we ask? 

'Nay,' perhaps you answer; 'we need rather to 
ask what these people and children do than what 



2 It is evident that the author here uses the term taste 
not in its technical and esthetic sense but as equivalent 
to a "susceptibility to truth and nobleness." 



SELECTIONS FROM RUSKIN 23 

they like. If they do right it is no matter that they 
like what is wrong; and if they do wrong it is no 
matter what they like. Doing is the great thing; 
and it does not matter that the man likes drinking 
so that he does not drink; nor that the little girl 
likes to be kind to her canary if she will not learn 
her lessons; nor that the little boy likes throwing 
stones at the sparrows if he goes to the Sunday 
School!' Indeed, for a short time, and in a provisional 
sense this is true. For if, resolutely, people do what 
is right, in time they come to like doing it; and as 
long as they don't like it, they are still in a vicious 
state. The man is not in health of body who is al- 
ways thirsting for the bottle in the cupboards, though 
he bravely bears his thirst ; but the man who heartily 
enjoys water in the morning and wine in the even- 
ing, each in its proper quantity and time. (If Mr. 
Ruskin were living to-day he would probably have 
revised this statement). And the entire object of 
true education is to make people not merely do the 
right things, but enjoy the right things — not merely 
industrious, but to love industry — not merely 
learned, but to love knowledge — not merely pure, 
but to love purity — not merely just, but to hunger 



24 SELECTIONS FROM RUSKIN 

and thirst after justice. 

— Crown of Wild Olive. 

Mr. Ruskin has rendered a valuable service in 
calling attention to the fundamental importance of 
our desires or inward preference as affording a basis 
for the right estimate of conduct. The unity of the 
moral life can be found only when the inner pur- 
pose is known. Because it is difficult to ascertain the 
motive, our judgments respecting the worthiness or 
unworthiness of conduct will often necessarily be 
erroneous. A better acquaintance with this fact 
might prevent many a hasty and unfair judgment. 

Some qualification is needed to the statement that 
the sole purpose of education is to make people enjoy 
the right things. The teacher of this must educate 
the conscience in the discrimination between the 
right and the wrong. It will often be his task to 
suggest standards of conduct that rise above the 
level of the current morality of his time. And his 
work may have a high educational value even if he 
fails to secure any general adoption of such stand- 
ards. The history of all movements for reform suf- 
ficiently illustrates the point; and the chief value of 



SELECTIONS FROM RUSKIN 25 

the ethical teaching of Ruskin himself may be cited 
in further proof of the value of such service. 



THE UNSELFISH USE OF SUPERIOR 
TALENTS 

T S it not wonderful that while we should be utterly 
ashamed to use a superiority of body, in order to 
thrust our weaker companions aside from some place 
of advantage, we unhesitatingly use our superiorities 
of mind to thrust them back from whatever good that 
strength of mind can attain? You would be indig- 
nant if you saw a strong man walk into a theatre or 
lecture-room, and, calmly choosing the best place, 
take his feeble neighbor by the shoulder and turn him 
out of it into the back seats or the street. You would 
be equally indignant if you saw a stout fellow thrust 
himself up to a table where some hungry children 
were being fed and reach his arm over their heads 
and take their bread from them. But you are not 
the least indignant if, when a man has stoutness of 
thought and swiftness of capacity, and, instead of be- 
ing long-armed only, has the much greater gift of 
being long-headed — you think it perfectly just that 
he should use his intellect to take the bread out of 



26 SELECTIONS FROM RUSKIN 

the mouths of all the other men in the town who are 
of the same trade with him; or use his breadth and 
sweep of sight to gather some branch of the com- 
merce of the country into one great cobweb of which 
he is himself to be the central spider, making every 
thread vibrate with the points of its claws, and 
commanding every answer with the facts of his eyes. 
You see no injustice in this. 

But there is injustice; and let us trust one, of 
which honorable men will, at no very distant period, 
disdain to be guilty. 

In some degree, however, it is indeed not unjust; 
in some degree it is necessary and intended. It is 
assuredly just that idleness should be surpassed by 
energy; that the widest influence should be pos- 
sessed by those who are best able to wield it; and 
that a wise man at the end of his career should be 
better off than a fool. But for that reason is a fool 
to be wretched, utterly crushed down, and left in all 
the suffering which his conduct and capacity nat- 
urally inflict? Not so. What do you suppose fools 
were made for? That you might tread upon them, 
and starve them and get the better of them in every 
possible way ? By no means. They were made that 



SELECTIONS FROM RUSKIN 27 

wise people might take care of them. That is the 
true and plain fact concerning the relations of every 
strong and wise man to the world about him. He has 
his strength given him, not that he may crush the 
weak, but that he may support and guide them. In his 
own household he is to be the guide and support of 
his children; out of his household he is still to be 
the father, that is the guide and support of the weak 
and poor ; not merely of the meritoriously weak and 
the innocently poor, but of the guilty and punisha- 
bly poor ; of the men who ought to have known bet- 
ter — of the poor who ought to be ashamed of them- 
selves. It is nothing to give pension and cottage 
to the widow who has lost her son ; it is nothing to 
give food and medicine to the workman who has brok- 
en his arm or the decrepit woman washing in sick- 
ness. But it is something to use your time and 
strength to war with the waywardness and thought- 
lessness of mankind ; to keep the erring workman in 
your service till you have made him an unerring one ; 
and to direct your fellow-merchant to the opportu- 
nity which his dullness would have lost. 

— A Joy for Ever, pages 80-82. 
This passage conveys in very clear language what 



28 SELECTIONS FROM RUSKIN 

the author understands to be the responsibility of the 
superior class to the inferior class in society. It is a 
strong protest against the too common practice of ex- 
ploiting the poor for the benefit of the rich. At the 
same time the author is careful to guard against the 
socialistic scheme of reducing society to a common 
level. It is not his purpose to banish the play of 
competition from the industrial and commercial 
world, but rather to modify and soften its harshest 
features. And the potent means by which this is to 
be accomplished is, by pervading business life with a 
spirit of broad and sincere christian sympathy. We 
may well share the optimism of the author that the 
time is coming when a sense of justice among the 
better class will bring about a kindlier attitude and a 
more humane treatment of the less gifted and less 
fortunate. 



THE TRUE SOURCE OF STRENGTH IN 
GOVERNMENT 

"^TO government is ultimately strong but in propor- 
tion to its kindness and justice, and that nation 
does not strengthen, by merely multiplying and dif- 
fusing itself. We have not strengthened as yet by 



SELECTIONS FROM RUSKIN 29 

multiplying into America. Nay, even when it has 
not to encounter the separating conditions of emi- 
gration, a nation need not boast itself of multiply- 
ing on its own ground, if it multiplies only as flies 
or locusts do, with the god of flies for its god. It 
multiplies its strength only by increasing as one great 
family, in perfect fellowship and brotherhood. And 
lastly, it does not strengthen itself by seizing do- 
minion over races whom it cannot benefit. Austria 
is not strengthened but weakened by her grasp of 
Lombardy; and whatever apparent increase of ma- 
jesty and of wealth may have accrued to us from the 
possession of India, whether these prove to us ulti- 
mately power or weakness, depends wholly on the 
degree in which our influence on the native race shall 
be benevolent and exalting. But, as it is at their 
own price that any race extends their dominion in 
mere desire of power, so it is at their own still greater 
peril that they refuse to undertake aggressive war, 
according to their force, whenever they are assured 
that their authority would be helpful and protective. 
Nor need you listen to any sophistical objection of 
the impossibility of knowing when a people's help is 
needed or when not. Make your national conscience 



30 SELECTIONS FROM RUSKIN 

clear and your national eyes will soon be clear. . . . 

I hold it my duty to make no political statement 
of any special bearing in this presence ; but I tell you 
broadly and boldly that within the last ten years, we 
English have, as a knightly nation, lost our spurs: 
we have fought when we should not have fought 
for gain ; and we have been passive when we should 
not have been passive for fear. I tell you that the 
principle of non-intervention, as now preached among 
us, is as selfish and cruel as the worst frenzy of con- 
quest and differs from it only by being not only ma- 
lignant, but dastardly. 

Crown of Wild Olive Sect III, p. 109-110. 

This selection is taken from an Address delivered 
to a company of students in a military academy in 
1866. It is noteworthy for its fearless and search- 
ing criticism of the national policy of England in its 
then recent wars. The opening sentence was pro- 
phetic of a statesmanlike policy, but little heeded at 
that time, but which is coming to be regarded as the 
only policy worthy of a civilized people. What Mr. 
Ruskin propounded as a condition for the success- 
ful administration of a state, the statesmen of Eng- 
land and of Europe are certain sooner or later to 



SELECTIONS FROM RUSKIN 31 

adopt. Recent events are confirming his suspicions 
respecting the value of India as an addition to the 
strength and solidarity of the empire. His words 
may also be regarded as an endorsement of our inter- 
vention in behalf of Cuba in our recent war with 
Spain. They have a direct application to the pres- 
ent situation in England. According to the highest 
ideals an unselfish policy is binding upon nations as 
well as upon individuals. 



THE UNSELFISH IMAGINATION 

^7* OU will find further that as of love so of all 
the other passions, the right government and 
exaltation begins in that of the Imagination which 
is lord over them. For to subdue the passions, which 
is thought so often to be the sum of duty respecting 
them, is possible enough to a proud dullness; but to 
excite them rightly and make them strong for good, 
is the work of the unselfish imagination. It is con- 
stantly said that human nature is heartless. Do not 
believe it. Human nature is kind and generous; but 
it is narrow and blind ; and can only with difficulty 
conceive anything but what it immediately sees and 



32 SELECTIONS FROM RUSKIN 

feels. People would instantly care for others as well 
as themselves if only they could imagine others as 
well as themselves. Let a child fall into the river be- 
fore the roughest man's eyes; — he will usually do 
what he can to get it out, even at some risk to him- 
self; and all the town will triumph in the saving of 
one little life. Let the same man be shown that hun- 
dreds of children are dying of fever for want of some 
sanitary measure which it will cost him trouble to 
urge, and he will make no effort, and probably all 
the town would resist him if he did. 

So also the lives of many discerning women are 
passed in a succession of petty anxieties about them- 
selves, and gleaning of minute interests and mean 
pleasures in their immediate circle, because they are 
never taught to make any effort to look beyond it ; or 
to know anything about the mighty world in which 
their lives are fading like blades of grass in fruitless 
fields. 

— Lectures on Art, Sect. 84. 

The distinction suggested between the subduing 
of a passion and the healthy excitement of it is im- 
portant for all teachers of ethics. Selfishness in a 
child will never be eliminated except by the active 



SELECTIONS FROM RUSKIN 33 

exercise of the opposite spirit. The environment of 
the home and of the school should afford frequent op- 
portunity for the exercise of such virtues. 

The inability to feel for others is doubtless due 
in a large measure to a lack of imagination which 
depends upon adequate knowledge for its exercise. 
Therefore to widen one's interests, and to get some 
accurate knowledge of how "the other half lives" is 
a valuable means of developing an active sympathy. 



ON BETTING 



r T , HERE is one way of wasting time of all the 
vilest because it wastes not time only, but the 
energy and interest of your minds. Of all the un- 
gentlemanly habits into which you can fall, the vilest 
is betting, or interesting yourselves in the issues of 
betting. It unites nearly every condition of folly 
and vice ; you concentrate your interest upon a mat- 
ter of chance, instead of upon a subject of true knowl- 
edge; and you back opinions which you have no 
grounds for forming, merely because they are your 
own. All the insolence of egotism is in this ; and so 
far as the love of excitement is complicated with the 



34 SELECTIONS FROM RUSKIN 

hope of winning money, you turn yourselves into the 
basest sort of tradesmen — those who live by specula- 
tion. Were there no other ground for industry, this 
would be a sufficient one ; that it protected you from 
the temptation to so scandalous a vice. Work faith- 
fully and you will put yourselves in possesssion of a 
glorious and enlarging happiness ; not such as can be 
won by the speed of a horse, or marred by the ob- 
liquity of a ball. 

— Crown of Wild Olive, Sect. Ill, p. 120. 

All fair minded persons will admit that Mr. Rus- 
kin has truthfully described the essential viciousness 
of betting. He has most aptly characterized the two 
occasions in England when it is most frequently in- 
dulged; horse racing and the games of cricket and 
of foot-ball. In this country, the Legislatures of 
several of our States are removing the temptation for 
the indulgence of this vice, but there is a large amount 
of betting in both foot-ball and base-ball which tends 
seriously to the demoralizing of our young men. To 
admit that it is a habit unfavorable to the best in- 
stincts of a gentleman should lead to its abandon- 
ment by all thoughtful persons. 



SELECTIONS FROM RUSKIN 35 

Those who are engaged in the work of education 
should find suitable opportunities to discourage this 
practice among the young. We certainly have a right 
to look to our institutions of learning, both public and 
private, to formulate a sentiment against this vice, 
which is far too prevalent among respectable peo- 
ple. 



ON THE SPENDING OF MONEY 

"VT OU will find it quite indisputably true — that 
whenever money is the principal object of life 
with either man or nation, it is both got ill and spent 
ill ; and does harm both in the getting and the spend- 
ing; but when it is not the principal object, it and 
all other things will be well got and well spent. And 
here is the test with every man, of whether money 
is the principal object with him or not. If in mid- 
life he could pause and say, "Now I have enough to 
live upon, I'll live upon it; and having well earned 
it, I will also well spend it and go out of the world 
poor as I came into it; then money is not principal 
with him ; but if, having enough to live upon in the 
manner befitting his character and rank, he still 



36 SELECTIONS FROM RUSKIN 

wants to make more and to die rich, then money is 
the principal object with him, and it becomes a curse 
to himself and generally to those who spend it after 
him. For you know it must be spent some day ; the 
only question is whether the man who makes it will 
spend it, or some one else. And generally it is bet- 
ter for the maker to spend it, for he will know best 
its value and use. This is the true law of life. And 
if a man does not choose thus to spend his money he 
must either hoard it or lend it, and the worst thing 
he can generally do is to lend it; for borrowers are 
nearly always ill-spenders, and it is with lent money 
that all evil is mainly done, and all unjust war pro- 
tracted. 

— Crown of Wild Olive, Sect. I, pp. 21-22. 

There is probably no subject respecting which a 
wider difference of opinion exists than in respect to 
the spending of money. The details will probably 
always be determined by the personal equation, large- 
ly influenced by habit and environment. The author 
seems to advocate the practice of distributing the 
principal without any reference to safe and produc- 
tive investment. This was in accordance with his 



SELECTIONS FROM RUSKIN 37 

own practice. Much may be said in favor of the 
personal distribution of property, reserving a suf- 
ficient amount for suitable maintenance. The ethical 
suggestion in this passage is that not only the acqui- 
sition of money, but the spending of it should be made 
a matter of conscientious control. 

There is probably a growing sentiment among peo- 
ple of large wealth that the possession of money im- 
plies a moral responsibility for its wise use. 



WORK DIGNIFIED BY ITS MOTIVE 

F N discussing the subject of Work, Mr. Ruskin is 
led to examine various motives which may influ- 
ence men in their occupations. This suggests to 
him a fundamental distinction in character. He 
says : 1 

There will always be a number of men who would 
fain set themselves to the accumulation of wealth as 
the sole object of their lives. Necessarily that class 
of men is an uneducated class, inferior in intellect 
and more or less cowardly. It is physically impos- 
sible for a well educated, intellectual, or brave man 
to make money the chief object of his thoughts; as 



38 SELECTIONS FROM RUSKIN 

physically impossible as it is for him to make 
his dinner the principal object of them. All healthy 
people like their dinner, but their dinner is not the 
main object of their lives. So all healthily minded 
people like making money — ought to like it and en- 
joy the sensation of winning it; but the main object 
of their life is not money ; it is something better than 
money. 

A good soldier, for instance, wishes to do his fight- 
ing well. He is glad of his pay — very properly so, 
and justly grumbles when you keep him ten years 
without it — still his main notion of life is to win 
battles — not to be paid for winning them. So of 
clergymen. They like pew rents and baptismal fees, 
of course; but yet, if they are brave and well edu- 
cated the pew rent is not the sole object of their 
lives, and the baptismal fee is not the sole purpose 
of the baptism ; the clergyman's object is essentially 
to baptise and preach, not to be paid for preaching. 
So of doctors. They like fees no doubt — ought to 
like them; yet if they are brave and well educated, 
the entire object of their lives is not fees. They, on 
the whole, desire to cure the sick; and — if they are 
good doctors and the choice were fairly put to them 



SELECTIONS FROM RUSKlN 39 

— would rather cure their patient and lose their fee 
than kill him and get it. And so with all other brave 
and rightly trained men; their rank is first, their 
fee second — very important always, but still second. 
But, in every nation, as I said, there are a vast class 
who are ill-educated, cowardly, and more or less stu- 
pid, and with these people, just as certainly, the fee is 
first and the work second, as with brave people the 
work is first and the fee second. And it is no small 
distinction. It is the whole distinction in a man, 
distinction between life and death in him, between 
heaven and hell for him. 

—Crown of Wild Olive, Sect. I, pp. 17-18. 

This selection offers one of the happiest illus- 
trations to be found in ethical literature of the inti- 
mate connection between conduct and character. It 
also suggests the fundamental importance of motive 
as a test of character. A mean motive inevitably de- 
grades the character of one engaged in the noblest 
work, while a noble motive helps to dignify the most 
menial occupation. The average politician finds it 
difficult to win respect because his motive is con- 
stantly suspected, while the man who labors without 



40 SELECTIONS FROM RUSKIN 

hope of reward is admitted to lasting renown. But 
why does the author describe the one class as brave 
and the other as cowardly? Evidently because it 
requires a certain amount of courage to choose the 
higher and discard the lower motive, and to perse- 
vere in such choices until the habit becomes estab- 
lished. There is no finer mark of the well-educated 
man. 



CONCERNING THE SETTLEMENT OF 
POLITICAL DIFFERENCES 
AMONG NATIONS 

CANNOT now delay to tell you how political 
quarrels might be otherwise settled. But grant 
that they cannot. Grant that no law of reason can 
be understood by nations; no law of justice sub- 
mitted to by them; and that while questions of a 
few acres and of petty cash can be determined by 
truth and equity, the questions which are to issue in 
the perishing or saving of kingdoms can be deter- 
mined only by the truth of the sword or the equity 
of the rifle. Grant this, and even then judge, if it 
will always be necessary for you to put your quarrel 



SELECTIONS FROM RUSKIN 41 

into the hearts of your poor and sign your treaties 
with peasants' blood. You would be ashamed to do 
this in your own private position and power. Why 
should you not also be ashamed to do it in public 
place and power? If you quarrel with your neigh- 
bor, and the quarrel be indeterminable by law and 
mortal, you do not send your footmen to Battersea 
fields to fight it out; nor do you set fire to his ten- 
ant's cottages, nor spoil their goods. . . . You 
either refuse the private duel or you practice it 
under the laws of honor, not of physical force; so 
that it may be, in a manner justly concluded. Now 
the just or unjust conclusion of the private feud is 
of little moment, while the just or unjust conclusion 
of the public feud is of eternal moment; and yet, 
in this public quarrel you take your servants' sons 
from their arms to fight for it, and your servants' 
food from their lips to support it, and the black seals 
on the parchment of your treaties of peace on the 
deserted hearth and the fruitless field. There is a 
ghastly ludicrousness in this as there is mostly in 
these wide and universal crimes. 
— Crown of Wild Olive, Sect. Ill, pp. 93-94. 



42 SELECTIONS FROM RUSKIN 

The evil described in this passage is much more 
conspicuous in European countries than under pop- 
ular government. Wars to gratify the ambition of 
some monarch or to revenge some private injury have 
too often brought devastation and ruin upon the 
class least able to bear it. But when the peo- 
ple are in control of the government and compre- 
hend the meaning of some great issue at stake they 
must assume the responsibility and help to bear the 
burden of war, if there is no other means of settle- 
ment. Mr. Ruskin evidently thought that this was 
hardly a supposable case. The growing sentiment 
in favor of the establishment of a Hague Tribunal 
expresses the popular desire to be relieved of such 
disastrous burdens. 



DISREGARD OF LAW IN THE PURSUIT 
OF WEALTH 

DY far the greater part of the suffering and crime 

which exist at this moment in civilized Europe, 

arises simply from not understanding this tension — 

not knowing that produce or wealth is eternally con- 



SELECTIONS FROM RUSKIN 43 

nected by the laws of heaven and earth with resolute 
labor; but hoping in some way to cheat or abrogate 
this everlasting law of life, and to feed when they 
have not furrowed, and be warm when they have 
not woven. 

I repeat, nearly all our misery and crime result 
from this one misapprehension. The law of nature is 
that a certain quantity of work is necessary to pro- 
duce a certainty of good of any kind whatever. 

If you want knowledge you must toil for it; if 
food, you must toil for it; and if pleasure, you must 
toil for it. 

But men do not acknowledge this law or strive to 
evade it, hoping to get their knowledge, and food, 
and pleasure, for nothing; and in this effort they 
either fail of getting them and remain ignorant and 
miserable, or they obtain them by making other 
men work for their benefits; and then they are tyr- 
ants and robbers. 

I am not one who, in the least, doubts or disputes 
the progress of this country in many things useful to 
mankind; but it seems to me a very dark sign re- 
specting us that we look, with so much indifference, 
upon dishonesty and cruelty in the pursuit of wealth. 



44 SELECTIONS FROM RUSKIN 

In the dream of Nebuchadnezzar it was only the 
feet that were part of iron and part of clay; but 
many of us are now getting so cruel in our avarice 
that it seems as if in us the heart were part of iron 
and part of clay. 

—The Two Paths, Sect. V. 

Evidence has been accumulating to prove that the 
unrestrained pursuit of wealth tends to set up a 
double standard of morals, one for business life and 
another for conduct in other relations. The former 
standard is made with a view to justify violations 
of law and to serve as our excuse for conduct which 
would be severely condemned elsewhere. Such low 
standards make men heedless of the rights of others 
and indifferent to the misery for which they become 
responsible. They justify themselves in the adultera- 
tion of food, in the organization of the sweat shop 
and in the employment of child labor, because busi- 
ness can be successfully conducted only by the em- 
ployment of such methods. There is great need of 
an ethical revival in behalf of a single standard of 
morals to comprehend all departments of conduct. 



SELECTIONS FROM RUSKIN 45 
THE VALUE OF CONTENTMENT 

' I A HE things to be desired for man in a healthy 
state, are that he should not see dreams but re- 
alities; that he should not destroy life but save it; 
and that he should not be rich but content. 

Towards which last state of contentment I do not 
see that the world at present is approaching. There 
are indeed two forms of discontent : one laborious, the 
other indolent and complaining. We respect the 
man of laborious desire, but let us not suppose that 
his restlessness is peace or his ambition, meekness. 
It is because of the special connection of meekness 
with contentment that it is promised that the meek 
shall "inherit the earth." Neither covetous men nor 
the Grave can inherit anything; they can but con- 
sume. Only contentment can possess. The most 
helpful and sacred work, therefore, which can at 
present be done for humanity, is to teach people 
(chiefly by example, as all best teaching must be 
done) not how "to better themselves," but how to 
"satisfy themselves." It is the curse of every evil na- 
tion and evil creature to eat, and not be satisfied. The 
words of blessing are, that they shall eat and be sat- 



46 SELECTIONS FROM RUSKIN 

isfled. And as there is only one kind of water which 
quenches all thirst, so there is only one kind of bread 
which satisfies all hunger, the bread of justice or 
righteousness; which hungering after, men shall al- 
ways be filled, that being the bread of Heaven ; but 
hungering after the bread or wages of unrighteous- 
ness, shall not be filled, that being the bread of 
Sodom. 

And in order to teach men how to be satisfied, it is 
necessary fully to understand the art and joy of 
humble life — this, at present, of all arts or sciences 
being the one most needing study. Humble life — 
that is to say, proposing to itself no future exulta- 
tion, but only a sweet continuance; not excluding 
the idea of foresight, but wholly of fore-sorrow ; and 
taking no troublous thought for coming days ; so, al- 
so, not excluding the idea of providence or provision, 
but wholly of accumulation: — the life of domestic 
affection and domestic peace, full of sensitiveness to 
all elements of costless and kind pleasure ; — therefore 
chiefly to the loveliness of the natural world. 

— Mod. Paint., Vol. 5, Part 9, Sect. 18. 

The test of a true philosophy of life must be in 



SELECTIONS FROM RUSKIN <- 

the satisfaction that it brings. Some will doubtless 
object that to make contentment with a humble life 
universal would reduce society to a dead level with- 
out ambition and without progress. The author seems 
to have fairly guarded against such a static concep- 
tion of society by admitting the necessity of a reason- 
able provision for the future. Surely room may be 
found in a simple life for the legitimate play of all 
natural desires without making the accumulation of 
wealth the one indispensable requisite for content- 
ment. And if these sane words were needed in the 
middle of the last century in order to correct the 
current ideals of life how much more suggestive are 
they now when the desire for accumulation has be- 
come an almost universal passion. 

In broken health and disordered lives we are pay- 
ing a heavy penalty- for the restless discontent that 
seems to pervade our whole social organism. The 
principle of suggestion operates powerfully to create 
the spirit of discontent so generally prevalent. The 
remedy is not to be found in the cultivation of the 
ascetic spirit but in seeking to gain a true estimate 
of values. 

We need in every community a larger number of 



4 8 SELECTIONS FROM RUSKIN 

examples, like that of Ruskin, of the intelligent and 
thoughtful, who will illustrate in their own living 
how rich and complete a life may be that is pervaded 
by a contented spirit. 



HONESTY IN TRIVIAL AFFAIRS 

HAVE sometimes thought a day might come 
when the nation would perceive that a well edu- 
cated man who steals a hundred thousand pounds, 
involving the entire means of subsistence of a hun- 
dred families, deserves on the whole as severe a pun- 
ishment as an ill-educated man who steals a purse 
from a pocket or a mug from a pantry. But without 
hoping for this success of clear-sightedness, we may, 
at least, labor for a system of greater honesty and 
kindness in the main commerce of our daily life; 
since the great dishonesty of the great buyers and 
sellers is nothing more than the natural growth and 
outcome from the little dishonesty of the little buy- 
ers and sellers. Every person who tries to buy an 
article for less than its proper value, or who tries 
to sell it at more than its proper value — every con- 
sumer who keeps a tradesman waiting for his money 



SELECTIONS FROM RUSKIN 49 

and every tradesman who bribes a consumer to ex- 
travagance by credit, is helping forward according to 
his own measure of power a system of baseless and 
dishonorable commerce, and forcing his country down 
into poverty and shame. And people of moderate 
means and average powers of mind would do far 
more real good by merely carrying out stern princi- 
ples of justice and honesty in common matters of 
trade, than by the most ingenious schemes of extended 
philanthrophy or vociferous declarations of theolog- 
ical doctrine. There are three weighty matters 01 
the law — justice, mercy and truth; and of these the 
Teacher puts truth last, because that cannot be known 
but by a course of acts of justice and love. But men 
put, in all their efforts, truth first, because they mean 
by it their own opinions; and thus, while the world 
has many people who would suffer martyrdom in the 
cause of what they call truth, it has few who will 
suffer even a little inconvenience in that of justice 
and mercy. 

— A Joy For Ever, Note 8. 

This passage again suggests the difference between 
a person who performs virtuous deeds and one who 



50 SELECTIONS FROM RUSKIN 

possesses a virtuous spirit. 

It is a remark of Hegel that "where a person does 
this or that ethically good act he is not straightway 
virtuous, but this he is when ethical behavior is a 
stable element in his character." Too much of our 
morality is a matter of convenience. It lacks such a 
genuine love of justice as will make one willing to do 
justly at some personal sacrifice. And so when the 
temptation comes for unjust gain, or for the abuse 
of official position there is a base surrender of per- 
sonal advantage. The time must come when we 
shall carry our love of justice into all the relations 
of life. 



THE PROCESS OF THE FORMATION 
OF HABITS 

A SINGLE knot of quartz occurring in a flake of 
slate at the crest of the ridge may alter the en- 
tire destinies of the mountain form. It may turn the 
little rivulet of water to the right or left, and that 
little turn will be to the future direction of the gath- 
ering stream what the touch of a finger on the hand 
of a rifle would be to the direction of the bullet. Each 



SELECTIONS FROM RUSKIN 51 

succeeding year increases the importance of every 
determined form and arranges in masses yet more 
and more harmonious, the promontories shaped by the 
sweeping of the eternal waterfalls. 

The importance of the results thus obtained by 
the slightest change of direction in the infant stream- 
lets furnishes an interesting type of the formation of 
human characters by habit. Every one of those not- 
able ravines and crags is the expression not of any 
sudden violence done to the mountain, but of its lit- 
tle habits j persisted in continually. It was created 
with one ruling instinct; but its destiny depended 
nevertheless, for effective result, on the direction of 
the small and all but invisible tricklings of water in 
which the first shower of rain found its way down its 
sides. The feeblest, most insensible oozings of the 
drops of dew among its dust were in reality arbiters 
of its eternal form ; commissioned with a touch more 
tender than that of a child's finger — as silent and 
slight as the fall of a half-checked tear on a maiden's 
cheek — to fix forever the forms of peak and preci- 
pice, and hew those leagues of lifted giants into the 
shapes that were to divide the earth and its king- 
doms. 



52 SELECTIONS FROM RUSKIN 

Once the little stone evaded — once the dim fur- 
row traced — and the peak was forever invisible with 
its majesty, the ravine forever doomed to its degra- 
dation. Thenceforward, day by day, the subtle hab- 
it gained in power, the evaded stone was left with 
wider basement; the chosen furrow deepened with 
swifter-sliding wave; repentance and arrest were alike 
impossible, and hour after hour saw written in larger 
and rockier characters upon the sky the history of 
the choice that had been directed by a drop of rain, 
and of the balance that had been turned by a grain 
of sand. 

—Mod. Painters, Part V, Chap. XIII. 



r I A HE process of the formation of habits has never 
been more accurately or more vividly illustrated. 
The current psychology finds the basis of this process 
in the plasticity of nervous tissue. Professor James, in 
his famous chapter on this topic, expounds in his pic- 
turesque manner the importance of habit for individ- 
ual and social life. But in the passage quoted above 
there is presented a subtle analysis of the process by 



SELECTIONS FROM RUSKIN 53 

which the daily repetition of trifling acts is insensibly 
fashioning the human organism into fixed and defi- 
nite modes of action which it is powerless to change. 

Nothing could more impressively suggest the im- 
portance of the trivial and insignificant in the con- 
duct of life and the safe-guarding of the earliest years 
in the life of the child. 

It may be suggested that the illustration is defec- 
tive in that it leaves no opportunity for the play of 
human freedom. The mechanism of nature cannot 
adequately represent the independent activity of the 
human spirit. And yet, it is only in the great crises 
of life that the human will is able successfully to 
defy the law of habit. 



ON LYING 



f I 'HIS (truthfulness) is especially to be insisted on 
in the early education of young people. It should 
be pointed out to them with continual earnestness 
that the essence of lying is in deception, not in words ; 
a lie may be told by silence, by equivocation, by the 
accent on a syllable, by a glance of the eye attaching 
a peculiar significance to a sentence; and all these 



54 SELECTIONS FROM RUSKIN 

kinds of lies are worse and baser by many degrees than 
a lie plainly worded ; so that no form of blinded con- 
science is so far sunk as that which comforts itself 
for having deceived, because the deception was by 
gesture or silence instead of utterance; and finally, 
according to Tennyson's deep and trenchant line, "A 
lie which is half a truth is ever the worst of lies." 
—Mod. Paint., Part IX, Chap. VII. 

This passage may be regarded as complementary to 
what the author has elsewhere said respecting the 
fundamental importance of truthfulness as the stand- 
ard of all excellence. 

The atmosphere of a good home is undoubtedly 
the best preservative against the formation of an un- 
truthful habit. It has been carefully pointed out 
that the practice of lying tends to obscure the per- 
ception of truth, and thus contributes to perpetuate 
the practice. 

Locke's sentiments on this subject are worth quot- 
ing. He says, "Lying is so ill a quality and the moth- 
er of so many ill ones that spawn from it and take 
shelter under it, that a child should be brought up 
in the greatest abhorrence of it imaginable. It should 



SELECTIONS FROM RUSKIN 5 5 

always be spoken of before him with the utmost de- 
testation as a quality wholly inconsistent with the 
name and character of a gentleman." 



THE NUDE IN ART 

T N introducing this topic Mr. Ruskin says that he 
does not propose to discuss the moral effects upon 
national life of the exposure of the nude form in 
art, but proceeds to lay down a rule applicable to all 
art. 

He says: There is no question that if shown at all, 
it should be shown fearlessly and seen constantly; 
but, I do not care, at present, to debate the question ; 
neither will I delay you by any expression of my 
reasons for the rule I am about to give. Trust me, 
I have many; and I can assert to you as a positive 
and perpetual law that so much of the whole body 
as in the daily life of the nation may be shown with 
modesty and seen with reverence and delight — so 
much, and no more ought to be shown by the national 
arts either of painting or sculpture. 

What more than this, either art exhibits will as- 
suredly pervert taste and, in all probability, morals. 



56 SELECTIONS FROM RUSKIN 

It will assuredly pervert taste in this essential point, 
that the polite ranks of the nation will come to 
think the living creature and its dress exempt from 
the highest laws of taste; and that while a man or 
woman must be seen dressed or undressed with dig- 
nity in marble, they may be dressed or undressed if 
not with indignity at least with less than dignity in 
the ball-room and in the street. 

Now the law of all living art is that the living 
man and woman must be more beautiful than their 
pictures, and their pictures as decorus as the living 
man or woman ; and that real dress and gesture and 
behavior should be more graceful than any marble 
or color can effect similitude of. 

The mere admiration of physical beauty in the 
body and the arts which sought its expression, not 
only induced greatly to the fall of Greece, but were 
the cause of errors and crimes in her greatest time, 
which must for ever sadden our happiest thoughts of 
her and have rendered her example almost useless to 
the future. 

— Eagle's Nest, Sects. 164-166. 

It will be readily admitted that such an artist as 



SELECTIONS FROM RUSKIN 57 

Mr. Ruskin has a right to be heard upon this sub- 
ject — one who is capable of appreciating the point of 
view of the artist as well as that of the moralist. The 
sanity of the author is conspicuous in the careful 
statement of the rule which would safeguard the 
morals of the nation, even though there should be 
some limit set to the worship of physical beauty. The 
passage furnishes one more illustration of Ruskin's 
supreme regard for the moral aspect of every ques- 
tion. Artist though he is, he would have this ques- 
tion discussed on its merits; nor would he seek to 
foster any culture of art that would tend, in any way, 
to weaken man's control over his sensual nature. 



COMPENSATION FOR WORK 

/^\THER questions to be considered are "how the 
hand-workers are to be paid, how they are to be 
refreshed, and what play they are to have." Now the 
possible quantity of play depends upon the possible 
quantity of pay; and the quantity of pay is not a 
matter for consideration to hand-workers only, but 
to all workers. Generally, good useful work, wheth- 
er of the hand or head is either ill-paid or not paid 



58 SELECTIONS FROM RUSKIN 

at all. I don't say it should be so but it always is 
so. People, as a rule, only pay for being amused, or 
being cheated, not for being served. Five thousand 
a year to your talker, and a shilling a day to your 
fighter, digger and thinker — is the rule. None of the 
best head work in art, literature or science is ever 
paid for. How much do you think Homer got for 
his Iliad? or Dante for his Paradise? only bitter 
bread and salt, and going up and down other peoples' 
stairs. In science, the man who discovered the tele- 
scope, and first saw heaven, was paid with a dungeon ; 
the man who invented the microscope, and first saw 
earth died of starvation, driven from his home. It is 
indeed very clear that God means all thoroughly 
good work and talk to be done for nothing. Baruch, 
the scribe, did not get a penny a line for writing 
Jeremiah's second roll for him, I fancy ; and St. Ste- 
phen did not get bishop's pay for that long sermon 
of his to the Pharisees ; nothing but stones. For that 
indeed is the world-father's proper payment — so sure- 
ly as any of the world's children work for the world's 
good, honestly, with head and heart; and come to 
it saying 'Give to us a little bread just to keep the 
life in us,' the world-father answers them, 'No my 



SELECTIONS FROM RUSKIN 59 

children, not bread but a stone, if you like, or as 
many as you need to keep you quiet.' 

But the hand-workers are not so ill off as 
all this comes to. The worst that can hap- 
pen to you is to break stones: not be 
broken by them. And for you there will come a 
time for better payment; some day, assuredly, more 
pence will be paid to Peter Fisherman and fewer to 
Peter the Pope; we shall pay people not quite so 
much for talking in Parliament and doing nothing, 
as for holding their tongues out of it and doing some- 
thing; we shall pay our ploughman a little more 
and our lawyer a little less, and so on ; but, at least, 
we may even now take care that whatever work is 
done shall be fully paid for ; and the man who does 
it paid for it, not somebody else ; and that it shall be 
done in an orderly, soldierly, well-guided, wholesome 
way, under good captains and lieutenants of labor; 
and that it shall have its appointed times of rest and 
enough of them; and that in these times the play 
shall be wholesome play, not in theatrical gardens, 
with tin flowers and gas sunshine, and girls dancing 
because of their misery; but in true gardens, with 
real flowers and real sunshine, and children dancing 



60 SELECTIONS FROM RUSKIN 

because of their gladness; so that the streets shall 
be full (the streets, mind you, not the gutters) of 
children playing in the midst thereof. 

— Crown of Wild Olive, pp. 30-32. 

While there is much truth in the statements of the 
author respecting the compensation for different kinds 
of work it is easy to find exceptions. In recent times 
the vast increase of wealth, and the competition 
among collectors for masterpieces in art and litera- 
ture have greatly increased the sums paid for works 
of genius. And while a certain class of literary pro- 
duction receives large compensation it is mainly due 
to a present popular interest rather than to its in- 
trinsic worth or permanent value. Familiar illus- 
trations are the prices paid for the narratives of the 
discoveries of the North Pole, and the letters 
of ex-President Roosevelt. 

While it is true that a few of the men who have 
benefitted the world by their discoveries and inven- 
tions have reaped substantial rewards, the great ma- 
jority have failed of any adequate recognition of their 
services or died in neglect. One reason for this is 
doubtless, due to the fact that it is impossible at the 
time to understand the real value of the discovery or 



SELECTIONS FROM RUSKIN 61 

invention — as, for example, the prospective value of 
the steam engine and of the steamboat. 

There is evidently no intention on the part of the 
author to ignore the need, or to depreciate the value 
of amusement. That the poor as well as the rich 
have always been willing to pay for their amuse- 
ment is strong testimony to the necessity for it in a 
healthy society. But what kind of amusement? Cer- 
tainly that which tends to elevate and refine while it 
frees the mind from care. Let the young learn to 
find their enjoyment in familiarity with nature, in 
listening to the best music, and in appreciating what 
is dignified and beautiful in art. Mr. Ruskin evi- 
dently believed that it was possible to elevate the 
public taste and to open for the humble poor, sources 
of enjoyment which would help to dignify and sweet- 
en life. His evident sincerity was shown in the estab- 
lishment of the school for working-men in which he 
sought to make them acquainted with the funda- 
mental principles of art. 

The opening of museums, the provision for pub- 
lic lectures and for musical entertainments, accessible 
to the poor, are striking testimony, in recent times to 
the wisdom of this movement. 



62 SELECTIONS FROM RUSKIN 
THE MYSTERY OF LIFE 

HP HIS intense apathy in all of us is the first great 
mystery of life; it stands in the way of every 
perception, every virtue. There is no making our- 
selves feel enough astonishment at it. That the oc- 
cupations or pastimes of life should have no motive is 
understandable; but that life itself should have no 
motive ; that we neither care to find out what it may 
lead to, nor to guard against its being forever taken 
away from us — here is mystery indeed. For just sup- 
pose I was able to call at this moment to any one in 
this audience by name, and to tell him positively that 
I knew a large estate had been lately left to him on 
some curious conditions, but that, though I knew it 
was large, I did not know how large, nor even where 
it was — whether in the East Indies, or the West, or 
in England, or at the Antipodes, I only knew it was a 
vast estate and that there was a chance of his losing 
it altogether if he did not soon find out on what 
terms it had been left to him. Suppose I were able 
to say this positively to any single man in this audi- 
ence and he knew that I did not speak without 
warrant, do you think that he would rest content 



SELECTIONS FROM RUSKIN 63 

with the vague knowledge, if it were anywise pos- 
sible to obtain more? Would he not give every en- 
ergy to find some trace of the facts and never rest 
until he had ascertained where this place was and 
what it was like ? . . . Would you not think it 
strange if the youth never troubled himself to sat- 
isfy the conditions in any way nor even to know what 
was required of him but lived exactly as he chose, 
and never inquired whether his chances of the estate 
were increasing or passing away? 

Well, you know that this is actually and lit- 
erally so with the greater number of the 
educated persons now living in Christian coun- 
tries. Nearly every man and woman, in 
any company such as this outwardly professes to 
believe — and a large number unquestionably think 
they believe — much more than this; not only that a 
quite unlimited estate is in prospect for them if they 
please the Holder of it, but that the infinite contrary 
of such a possession — an estate of perpetual misery — 
is in store for them if they displease this great Land- 
Holder, this great Heaven-Holder. And yet there 
is not one in a thousand of these human souls that 
cares to think for ten minutes of the day, where 



64 SELECTIONS FROM RUSKIN 

this estate is, or how beautiful it is, or what kind 
of life they are to lead in it, or what kind of life they 
must lead to obtain it. 

— The Mystery of Life, Section 108. 

This striking passage is characteristic of the 
honesty and sincerity of Ruskin. There has 
been frequent occasion to note his severe condemna- 
tion of shams in art, politics and social life. Like his 
contemporary, Carlyle, he is always intent upon dis- 
covering the true significance of life. The light of 
his keen analysis was employed not so much to ex- 
pose error as to reveal truth. Sooner or later this 
process would be applied to the common belief in a 
future life. He would fain know why men failed 
to square their conduct with their belief. If the con- 
templation of this failure is attended with a sense of 
sadness, he does not attempt to invade the province of 
the preacher by any exhortation to a better life. 

This address of Ruskin was made possible by his 
familiarity with the English Bible. In a most im- 
pressive way he has described how his mother as- 
signed him not only a daily task in the reading of the 
Bible, but had him commit to memory large portions 



SELECTIONS FROM RUSKIN 65 

of it. In this way his retentive mind became satu- 
rated with both the ideas and the language of the 
English Bible. From early boyhood the idea of God, 
a future life, and of human responsibility were fa- 
miliar truths accepted as the teaching of the Book 
whose authority he never questioned. Whatever may 
have been the final religious views of Ruskin there 
is abundant evidence of his belief in the perpetual pres- 
ence of God in the world, of a moral order ever 
revealing itself in the consciences of men and giving 
significance and value to human life. These ideas 
afford a background before which he arrays his crit- 
icisms of art, literature and social life, the heritage of 
all English speaking people, and a permanent con- 
tribution to the literature of the nineteenth century. 



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